SEPTEMBER 2020 PCWorld 21XEON SHOULD DUMP
UNUSED CORE SPACE
Intel’s Xeon chip designs currently leverage
the same cores for all uses, from
computationally intense super computers to
plain old web servers and virtual machines.
Such wildly different functions don’t often
touch the part of the die the other work loads
do, Piednoël said. This can result in 10
percent of space that’s simply wasted for a
particular use. That space could be better
used to instead add additional cores to better
compete for markets that don’t need AVX512.
That, however, he said would require Intel
to be flexible. “Right now, Intel is so rigid,”
Piednoël said. “It’s just ‘I have a core, and I am
going to use it everywhere.’”
He said any of Intel’s chip design teams
from IDC, Oregon, or Austin could be put to
work designing focused, niche versions of
Xeon for more specialized needs rather than
selling the same core for all scenarios.ONLY MBA’S RISING
Piednoël didn’t spare words for Intel’s culture,
which he said has changed drastically and
promotes MBAs over those with technical
prowess. This has resulted in “no innovation,
no aggressive road maps, and no people
driven because they are discouraged because
the MBA’s are the only ones rising,” a bitter
sounding Piednoël said. Rather than an
audible being called on the fly to counter an
AMD product, today’s Intel is simply unwilling
to maneuver or push back. Instead, he said,
CPU road maps are laid out by planners with
MBAs who aren’t able to adjust. Right now,
Intel’s fabs continue to pump out enough
CPUs to keep it profitable, but Piednoël said
Intel’s brand is being lost slowly.
“I remember on the
launch of the Pentium II,
Andy Grove said
something to the
team, he said ‘God
only gave us one brand.
Don’t ever mess it.’ I
think right now, we are
messing up the brand.
So get at it, and work
harder to make sure
the Extreme Edition is
actually Extreme
and win.”Intel should stop trying to sell one core for all Xeon customers and
instead design “take out” niche versions specialized for virtual
machine, web servers, and super computers, Piednoël said.